NigSek: A Monster’s Tail

Created by: SovanJediReleased: November 2001 (First full release)Engine: RM2000

Naturally, RPG Maker became quite the conduit for making fan-games of existing JRPG franchises, sometimes even non-RPGs would be made into fan-games. These games would top the download charts just for having “DBZ” or “Final Fantasy” in the title. Nigsek – A Monsters Tail doesn’t even bother wearing the IP on its name. It’s a sequel to another fan-game called The Legend of Zelda: Angels Four (made in RM95). Not only that but it’s the only RM game that I remember that used FMVs. Heck, you don’t even play as Link and there’s Pokemon in it for some reason.

The premise is that having saved Hyrule along with your friends, you were granted a peaceful limbo to dwell in. Before the existential thoughts can manifest, the balance of Hyrule gets disrupted. Link has disappeared from Hyrulian history, and your goal is to travel back and time and figure out why it happened. To complicate this further, you’re split into two halves. It’s full of weird mind bending aspects you would never expect a Zelda fan-game to broach. The writing is introspective and explores the fate and relationships between characters, but it also has a child-like wonder to it.

Nigsek pretty much breaks every fan-game convention on the list. Despite having more reason to use rips from existing Zelda games it has mostly originally made graphics. These graphics render large sprawling maps that aim to recreate a lot of the locales that you’d find in Ocarina of Time. But what about those dang FMVs? The seldom used “Play Movie” event command displays the author’s custom made CGI videos that look straight out of a PS1 game studio experimenting with 3D for the first time. These renders also match with the facesets, some chipset segments and battle scenes. More than simply just the author flexing his production values, the cinematics give a certain feel to the world and important situations.

This homage really interacts with the lore and ethos of Zelda, given that it came out before Wind Waker, there’s an interesting context from what material was available back in 2001. Having said all of that, there are some weird issues with the game though. Following in the footsteps of Majora’s Mask there’s a huge day/night cycle that governs the flow of the game. Meaning you’ll be returning to a lot of places based on a running clock, multiple events happen in the same location which rely on the author’s management of events to run smoothly. It’s not hard to see why this would lead to a lot of errors. It also says something about the ambition of the game since it’s also complete. With all that in mind, this game is such a crazy anomaly on so many levels, so it’s worth checking out, just be wary of the bugs.